There’s a New Tomboy in Town

A new Tomboy has taken up residence on Smith Street. And word is she bakes the meanest gluten-free treats in town.

Photography: Kristoffer Paulsen

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Photography: Kristoffer Paulsen

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Photography: Kristoffer Paulsen

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Published on 27 August 2012

by Frances Kent

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Pia Hambour and Georgina March are the co-owners of Smith Street’s latest cafe, Tomboy. The cafe’s official christening on Sunday saw the small space spilling with friends and curious passersby keen to checkout the newcomer.

The cafe evolved from the ladies’ initial dream of creating a shopfront to showcase their wholesale baking business, Box Brownies. The pair provides the gluten-free treats devoured daily at institutions such as Seven Seeds, De Clieu and Brother Baba Budan. Baked by March herself, Tomboy has an extended range of Box Brownies’ goods on offer to eat in or takeaway.

Peeling your eyes from the sweets cabinet, the giant reel of brown butchers paper mounted to the wall sports an equally tempting breakfast and lunch menu. Primarily vegetarian, the seasonal menu will be chopped and changed every couple of days.

Dependable cafe fare is available, but the dishes go above and beyond the mainstream, with exotic inclusions such as Persian pancakes with fig, dates and apricot labne.

The odd meat dish will be of the sustainable type, which fits with the duo’s ethos of healthy living, including using produce from their own veggie patch and sourcing local suppliers. Coffee beans come from their friends at Seven Seeds and a single origin will be on a rotation.

Tomboy is decked out with tables, chairs and light fixtures found from country op shops, antique stores and friends. Recycled bricks surrounding the vintage speaker system doubles as the counter and patterned jars are used to serve lattes.

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March and Hambour are also supportive of local artists, with one of the café walls dedicated to rotating exhibitions. Local street artist Drab’s larger then life gangsta baby is currently plastered across the space.

In case they weren’t busy enough, the girls have put together a quarterly publication, the Tomboy paper, keeping diners up to date with all things Collingwood, Box Brownie and Tomboy with the helped of creative directors Emily Gillis and Camille Moir-Smith of Yolk Studio, who have recently inhabited the bungalow in Tomboy’s courtyard.

This Tomboy may have only just moved to town, but she is already attracting the gangs.